Aadie wanted to suggest they cancel all further testing but she knew their contracts prevented such logical actions. The time in the pod was a blur this time, spending it staring helplessly at the name covered walls of her “office”. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason, no discernible pattern. And it was driving her mad.

Once more she was filled with dread as they emerged, no longer bothering to hope they all came out. Instead accepting the idea that one of them would remain trapped and simply hoping it was someone she didn't quite get along with. Not that she would wish such a fate on anyone. But this time...this time the emergency lights cut her to the core.

“Not...not her.” Rushing to Peri's pod she refused to believe what she was seeing. It was probably one of the worst kept secrets that she'd been crushing on the woman since the project began. Not that anything would ever happen, seeing as Peri was most firmly straight. “Peri. Peri sweetie. Please. Please wake up. Please.” It was fruitless, she knew that but she couldn't stop, trying to wake her dear friend. “Don't do this to me. I need you.” Gentle fingers combed through Peri's hair and stroked her cheeks, Aadie's heart breaking.

“I'll find them. I promise you I'll find them. I'll tear them apart bit by bit until they tell me how to set you free. Just hang on for me. Don't give up baby. I promise I'll find a way to get you out.” Despite the enclosure she managed to slip part way in, taking a good look, wanting desperately to see Peri's pale cheeks blush once more. “I'll find a way.” The words were whispered before a soft kiss was placed to those lips that were so often curved in a smile.

Not bothering to fight the tears she looked at those who remained through narrowed eyes. SunshineSparkle had been with the majority for nearly every vote. Was she one of the hackers? One of the ones guiding the engineers to turn on each other rather than find those who were truly to blame?

Once again they had lost more of the good guys ....another trapped in the system and one booted out the front door . " Aadreal ...somehow you have managed to escape being unveiled several times now ....for better or worse , I am just to curious to find out if the whispered rumors that Sarena was able to tag you as a hacker are really true . " Part of her wished not though for that would mean several other of her close friends might also have been deceiving her from the start . Shame on them really and the lengths they seemed to go to so many trapped now and still there seemed no way to bring them back out of the World they had all created .

One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

~Gustave Flaubert

A king anxiously wanted his only son to marry. One day, the prince cut his finger; his blood fell on white cheese, and he declared that he would marry only a woman as white as the cheese and as red as the blood. He set out to find her. He wandered until he came to the Island of Ogresses, where two little old women each told him he could find what he sought here, if he went on, and the third gave him three citrons, with a warning not to cut them until he came to a fountain. A fairy would fly out of each, and he had to give her water at once.

He returned home, and by the fountain, he was not quick enough for the first two, but was for the third. The woman was red and white, and the prince wanted to fetch her home properly, with suitable clothing and servants. He had her hid in a tree. A slave, coming to fetch water, saw her reflection in the water, and thought it was her own and that she was too pretty to fetch water. So she refused, and her mistress beat her until she fled. The fairy laughed at this, and the slave found her. The slave asked the fairy to tell her story and on hearing it, offered to arrange her hair for the prince. When the fairy agreed, the spiteful slave stuck a pin into her head, and the fairy only escaped by turning into a bird. When the prince returned, the slave claimed that wicked magic had transformed her.

The prince and his parents prepared for a grand wedding. The bird flew to the kitchen and asked after the cooking. The lady ordered it be cooked, and it was caught and cooked, but the cook threw the water it had been scalded in, into the garden, where a citron tree grew in three days. The prince saw the citrons, took them to his room, and dealt with them as the last three, getting back his bride. She told him what had happened. He brought her to a feast and demanded of everyone what should be done to anyone who would harm her.

When it was her turn, the slave said she should be burned -- and so the prince had the slave burned.

Val sat in a little orchard, reading this tale; and when she reached up to pluck an orange of her own, it dwindled in her hand, becoming only a sweet-smelling blossom. Before she could fully grasp this, it fractured apart, dissolving into pixels, into atoms, and flew in all directions. She gasped, horrified all out of proportion to the incident.

And she jolted awake, just in time to realize that another had been lost.

She frowned, glancing around the room. How many had been lost? She couldn't even remember, couldn't organize her thoughts long enough to work it out. But the situation was increasingly desperate, that much was clear. They could not make any more mistakes.

"Aadreal," she said, quietly, still frowning. If they were wrong again... but she must not think that way. That way lay madness, and she was near enough to that as it was, she suspected.

James glowered, looking darkly around the room. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and his hands trembled when he brushed the hair out of his eyes. "I'm not even sure any of you are real at this point..." He laughed a little and fell uncomfortably silent. The room, everyone in it, the whole world was tinged with green -- it was as though his vision had shifted a couple of hues to the left on the color wheel. Shaking his head and heading for the water cooler, he muttered, "I don't know, Sunshine Sparkle maybe?"

Starlequin sat at his terminal, unlit cigarette drooped from his lips, a quarter dancing over his knuckles as he considered the others' actions. He was grateful his circle of trust had grown, but he had a feeling a snake had slithered into their confidence and was manipulating them from the inside. The coin slipped from his knuckles to rest on the ridge of his thumb and he flipped it absently, looking over at Ryven. "I still don't understand why you're so dead set that Aadreal is against us. From everything I've seen, she's either been a straight shooter or she's been played just like the rest of us by these bastards. But you still keep insisting that she's not to be trusted. Makes me wonder if you know something the rest of us don't. How about it, pretty boy? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're both hackers, trying to screw each other over for an even bigger cut? Is that how it's goin' down?"

Aadreal is the choice for the day and apparently the first good choice in a long while for the Engineers. After she's been escorted from the building with much kicking and screaming of her own innocence, they sit down at her rig to search for evidence, finding her to be exactly what they were hoping for; a Hacker. With one less threat in the project, they settled in for their VR Phase with an uneasy hope that they'd dealt with the problem.

Kokaine has been removed from the game for inactivity. She was an Engineer.

Waking up from the VR Phase and coming back to the world, it seems there are still more among them that wish to do harm, as they find today it is Sasha stuck in the world in between. Their beloved White Hat. They had to figure this out once and for all... time was running out on the project deadline and if they hadn't worked out the kinks and saved their friends, the Hackers were going to make a killing. Quite literally.

This round will last approximately 48 hours or less if you get your votes in sooner.

Luna had some serious thinking to do... one of her best friends turned out to be a hacker... which was understandable... she just hoped that people wouldn't assume her own guilt by association, or it could be lights out for her.

She had to give Ryven his due, she was big enough to admit when she was wrong, and now she had to wonder what else she had been wrong about. Trieste seemed like a good place to start.